[meme] December rambly meme 12/22
Title: crashing-smashing
Fandom: BtVS/SPN
Word Count: ~2600
Rating: pg
Prompt: Sam/Faith/Ruby cuddles on a rainy day
Recipient: gryfndor_godess
Characters: Sam/Faith/Ruby, Dean, (background Dawn)
Setting: Once, they all get snowed in for a couple of days.
a/n: I’ve seen a few comments around tumblr about how size-difference shouldn’t just be big!man/small!woman - but the reason why this appeals to me SO MUCH with Jared/Gen and Eliza/Tahmoh (now also Eliza/Jared) is that I like the idea of teeny, tiny women being IN CHARGE of big, moose-sized men. Part of the reason why I casted Eliza/Tahmoh as Han/Leia in my gender-swap Star Wars is because HOW CUTE would it be for Tahmoh to not fit in the Millenium Falcon? And always having to duck and squish himself into spaces that were made for Eliza’s teeny, weeny body. So… imagine that when you think of my Sam/Faith/Ruby - think of an oversized, awkward moose getting in the way and feeling too big and awkward and his ladies thinking he’s the cutest oversized moose of all the oversized mooses at the store.
a/n 2: I saw a comment somewhere (probably on Alex's domestic Bela/Dean+Sam Halloween series) that Sam would always feel like a third wheel with Bela/Dean while Dean has no such complex and would actually spend too much time with Sammy/girlfriend ... that concept highly influenced this piece, jsyk.
[... a little bit of Ruby is what I need a little bit of Faith is what I see...]The miraculous thing, Sam often thought the weirdest thing, is that when the girls suddenly appeared at their hotel room with their backpacks and their bright faces and chapped lips and wild hair, they didn’t insist on getting their own room.
They always knew where he was, of course - he had tried hiding once, but nothing, not even angelic intervention, prevented that knock on the door at five o’clock in the morning.
Dean would ricochet off his bed, as though the concept of sleep and waking was completely foreign to him, and drag the shotgun out from under his pillow before inching to the door in his crew socks and boxers. But every time - without fail - they had a key and the knock was just their way of being polite. Dean’s gun was out of his hands in a flurry of girls and limbs and giggling and talking, and afterwards his cheeks were covered in dark smears of lipstick, and then there were bags everywhere and it only took them moments to vomit hair products and shoes all over the small space as if they had always been there and it was Sam and Dean who were intruding on their private space. (Who could really say how they kept all those boots and accessories in just two hiking backpacks… Sam just learned to stop asking questions.)
Dean would stand there for a moment in the open doorway, still trying to remember where they were, before slamming the door shut and curling back up into bed, the blanket pulled fully over his head.
With Ruby and Faith, you generally just had to wait it out.
There would be a lot of laughter and teasing and flurried energy as they dashed back and forth, tripping and crashing into each other only to laugh harder and move faster.
Sam had always thought that the happiest couples found a rhythm, a dance that they performed where nothing fell or was burned in the kitchen and their pace always matched and the laundry was folded just so and everything seemed seamless. He thinks this is what his parents were like (and tried to ask Dean once, but realized at some point in his adulthood that the vision of Mary and John Winchester in his brother’s memory might never have existed - he thinks sometimes that this realization was what finally pushed him into adulthood) and has dreamed of having someone with whom he is so in-sync with.
Bela and Dean did this sometimes. When she showed up, she’d already be in their hotel room when they got back from dinner or sweaty from a fight or bleary-eyed drunk and she’d say something like, “Took you long enough,” and then Sam found himself on one side of a closed door with his bag on one arm and the words, “Get your own room Sammy,” ringing in his ears. In the morning he’d find them at a diner, finishing each other sentences and him stealing her bacon as she poured him another coffee without anyone bumping elbows or a drop of coffee on the table.
Faith and Ruby are nothing like this. They burn everything from scrambled eggs to chicken parmesan (when someone allows them into a kitchen, which Sam tries to avoid at all costs). Half of their possessions are broken or dingy from their propensity to drop everything. Dean comments from time to time that for a Slayer and a demon with otherworldly physical strength and speed, they are the clumsiest people he has ever come across. Sam never argues this point. He thinks it’s almost the reverse, they are both so small with so much energy - he’s often surprised that they don’t wreck entire buildings with each other, just by accident. (He tries not to calculate how much destruction they do on purpose.) And then he’d be standing there in the middle of it, trying to be very still so that he didn’t mess it all up, their crashing, smashing, wild dance around him.
So when they both put their mind to settling into the Winchester hotel room, it typically includes quite a bit of colliding and broken items and bruising.
All of which Sam waits out patiently.
Because it isn’t like he doesn’t know what’s coming.
Both of them curled up on him and around him and their wild hair tickling him and them laughing softly in his ears and pinning him down between them so that he feels solid and encompassed and they cocoon around him, little wild things, with tales of their latest adventures and puns for Dean and gifts that suddenly get volleyed back and forth across the room and they are up and down, one sitting on his chest and the other performing a particular fight at his feet, jumping up and off and on the bed and arguing and laughing and always laughing and then sudden, deep sleep that’s all limbs and hair and soft breathing and blankets and sheets in a tangle and he feels solid with them on top of him.
And it isn’t like he doesn’t know it’s worth it.
(Although he could live without Dean hurtling insults at them from below the blankets even if the ensuing tickle/pillow fight that inevitably comes keeps him armed with sufficient blackmail material for the next month.)
(Although he knows why Dean never leaves and why he doesn’t return the favor, a not-so-gentle boot in the ass to leave them alone and “get your own room Dean” because when Bela comes it feels like a marriage and a mr. and mrs. and privacy and quiet laughter through the walls but when Faith and Ruby knock on their door it’s like being children again, everything is noise and movement and laughter and nothing feels serious and everything is serious and even if sometimes he really wishes his brother would take the hint and leave so he can shag them breathless and watch them walk around the hotel naked; he knows there’ll be time for that later - because they always find the time for that - but when they first arrive, it’s like family and insults and teasing and laughter.)
Once, they arrived just on the heels of a disaster, and just before a massive snow storm.
Faith usually fought with them over successful kills they accomplished without her assistance, insisting on going over every step of their investigation and battle with Dean and a couple of beers until she was satisfied that it all would have gone over much more smoothly with her assistance. She didn’t like being left out, she hated appearing just as the dust was starting to settle.
Once, they arrived just as the dust was settling and the brothers had just settled in to wait out the impending storm before moving on.
The knock came around three in the morning and Sam watched Dean do his dance - the shotgun, the shuffle, and then-
Nothing.
No door opening wildly with a crash and girls falling over each other, arm-in-arm, almost one person.
Dean looked back at Sam, who sat up in bed and shrugged. With an intake of breath and tightening shoulders, Dean inched towards the door and peered through the peephole before hurriedly opening it and dragging the two girls in.
They were wet and shivering, looked a bit like drowned rats, and had no bags to speak of.
Sam shot up out of bed as Dean calmly shut the door, checking the hallway first, and eyed them warily.
“We ran…” Ruby’s voice was stilted and small, gasping. “We ran about twenty miles…”
“More,” Faith cut her off grimly.
“What-?” Dean took a step towards them, his arm outstretched, looking curiously over at Sam who was frozen on the spot across the room.
“Watchers,” Faith spit out bitterly. Ruby reached up and smoothed her hair out of her face.
“They must have been keeping tabs on us, we got sloppy, and then they were suddenly on top of us.”
“Why didn’t you hitchhike or steal a car or something? Running through this mess was stupid,” Sam’s voice felt thick and unnatural in his mouth as the harsh words came pouring out.
(Again, a strange look from Dean.)
“We had to stay off the roads,” Ruby replied calmly. “I almost went to find a new body…”
“No,” Faith cut her off.
There was a stilted, uncomfortable silence, water dripping off the girls onto the horrid greed carpet in rivulets.
“Why don’t… hey take a hot shower and I’ll call Buffy… have you called? - okay I’ll call her and let her know what happened,” Dean shoved them towards the bathroom and picked up his cell from the nightstand. “Just get warm,” he called over his shoulder.
Sam stood between the two beds, his hands clenched into fists.
“I should have been there.”
Dean looked up surprised, “You couldn’t have kn-hey?! Dawnie? It’s Dean… haha yeah hey there kiddo. Is your big sis around? … no? … what about Spike or the witch? … what the hell why didn’ t they call us? … Dawn an apocalypse is a pretty big… well yeah we’re on a …. No! … listen just let them know when they… just have them call me alright … go to bed it’s a school night anyway … Dawn I swear … well let me at least send Cas… WHATTYA MEAN HE’S ALREADY THERE?! … listen here Dawn… oh okay … oh us? We’re great! … Wait! No! that’s why I called … Faith and Ruby had a run-in with some Watchers not far from… oh… yeah okay… yeah I’ll let them know… thanks kiddo… yeah yeah yeah I know you’re not … alright hot stuff… I’ll call back in a couple of days and we’ll lay low for now … no do not send Andrew! Dawn?! Dawn did you hear me do not! …” Dean looked back at Sam, “She hung up on me!”
Sam just stared as Dean started putting on jeans and his boots. “I’m gonna head into town before we get completely snowed in and pick up some more supplies. Food and stuff. We gotta hole out here for a while and then maybe drive the girls over to Sunnydale so we can all figure this… Sam are you okay?”
“I should have been there.”
“It’s not your fault, ya big moose. Anyway, didn’t they skip out on us a few weeks ago back in Atlanta? I woke up and they were gone, did they tell you were they went?”
“No.”
“Then how could you have known anyway?”
Silence.
“I’ll be back, Sammy. Just get them warm, okay?”
Sam stood outside the door to the bathroom for a few minutes, trying to hear their voices under the crashing sound of the shower, but there wasn’t even a murmur. So he dropped back onto the bed and waited.
He probably dozed off because the next thing he knew, two warm bodies were curling up on either side of him, smelling like hotel shampoo, bodies still warm from the shower and their hair static-hot from the hotel blow-dryer, wearing his old t-shirts and boxers that dwarfed them. He didn’t even hear them getting dressed, hadn’t heard their bare feet stomping around the room, their giggles, their crashing-smashing dance, he always heard it.
He looked down at them, their heads curled up just inside the nook of his arms, their hands intertwined on his chest, he had never known them to be so tired, so still.
Usually Ruby’s fingers would be tapping out a beat on his chest, or Faith’s hand, as she hummed just below the register of anyone hearing. Usually Faith’s feet rubbed up against theirs, comforting and always in motion, soothing them and herself with her small movements.
Even in sleep they both moved constantly. Sam would wake up sometimes with bruises on his legs because they both kicked out at their nightmares and memories in their sleep. Once, Faith gave him a black eye in the night. Once Ruby bit his arm so hard they woke up covered in little droplets of blood.
And they both giggled before kissing him softly and murmuring to each other about their soft little boy and how delicate their baby was and how precious and sweet and then would demand something decadent for breakfast.
Tonight, they were wrung out beyond anything he had ever seen. After a good fight both of them were the type to celebrate with dancing or sex or both. Sometimes he’d drop them at a club so he could get in a good nap first before they attacked him a few hours later with their new burst of energy.
(Dean liked to drink and play pool after a good hunt; make friends with a bartender; lose his heart to a fellow bearded vagabond; come home stumbling and singing drinking songs he made up off-the-cuff and always sort of sounded like a sped-up version of Hotel California or a slowed-down version of Eye of the Tiger.)
Sam placed a kiss on the top of both their heads and tightened his arms around them, receiving the satisfaction of them both snuggling closer to him as he did.
Outside, he could hear the gentle hum of the icy rain that signaled the coming storm. In the morning, there’d be snow and they’d be safe from whatever the girls had been running from in the meantime.
“Dean talked to Dawnie,” he said finally. For all that he sometimes was exhausted by them, he found their sudden silence and stillness disconcerting. “She might be sending Andrew? I didn’t really get a sense of anything. Mostly she just said to stay here until the storm breaks. And then I guess we’ll go to Sunnydale?”
“Shh!” Ruby tilted her head up to look at him, her deep eyes lined with dark shadows. “Be a quiet bear for once. She’s finally asleep!” Ruby rubbed his shoulder with her cheek and continued in the same hoarse whisper, “She hasn’t slept in almost three days.”
Sam’s heart thudded in his chest. “Why didn’t you call?”
Ruby shrugged, “She told me not to. Wanted to deal on her own.” She yawned deeply, “Just sleep, bear. We can talk later.”
Within seconds, Ruby’s breathing was set in a perfect harmony with Faith’s soft snoring and he knew they were both asleep.
He held them, rubbing their arms softly with his hands, trying to pour some energy into their skin with the small motion.
It was the first time he didn’t fall asleep first.
When Dean appeared - windblown and nearly frozen - several hours later with a couple of lukewarm pizzas and bags of snacks and food (“Are those my boxers?!”) and an armful of old dvd’s borrowed from the hotel clerk - the girls woke up with a start and were back to their normal selves.
They spent the next few days in the hotel room - sending the brothers out to brave the storm for food and liquor occasionally - mostly the three of them curled up on one bed while Dean kept up a running commentary through the bad daytime soaps and worse films from his.
Hunters and Slayers and runaway demons didn’t often get vacations.
But cuddled up in a hotel room while a storm raged on outside, protecting them from the dangers they were supposed to fight, was a better break than Sam had ever hoped to ask for.
They’d never forgo the lingering threat that hung perpetually over their heads, but maybe holding each other as they slept, finding the space to curl up around each other, was all they were allowed to have.
* posting this 20min early because why the hell not (also a full day early for everyone not on a BKK timezone... such is the life)
Fandom: BtVS/SPN
Word Count: ~2600
Rating: pg
Prompt: Sam/Faith/Ruby cuddles on a rainy day
Recipient: gryfndor_godess
Characters: Sam/Faith/Ruby, Dean, (background Dawn)
Setting: Once, they all get snowed in for a couple of days.
a/n: I’ve seen a few comments around tumblr about how size-difference shouldn’t just be big!man/small!woman - but the reason why this appeals to me SO MUCH with Jared/Gen and Eliza/Tahmoh (now also Eliza/Jared) is that I like the idea of teeny, tiny women being IN CHARGE of big, moose-sized men. Part of the reason why I casted Eliza/Tahmoh as Han/Leia in my gender-swap Star Wars is because HOW CUTE would it be for Tahmoh to not fit in the Millenium Falcon? And always having to duck and squish himself into spaces that were made for Eliza’s teeny, weeny body. So… imagine that when you think of my Sam/Faith/Ruby - think of an oversized, awkward moose getting in the way and feeling too big and awkward and his ladies thinking he’s the cutest oversized moose of all the oversized mooses at the store.
a/n 2: I saw a comment somewhere (probably on Alex's domestic Bela/Dean+Sam Halloween series) that Sam would always feel like a third wheel with Bela/Dean while Dean has no such complex and would actually spend too much time with Sammy/girlfriend ... that concept highly influenced this piece, jsyk.
[... a little bit of Ruby is what I need a little bit of Faith is what I see...]The miraculous thing, Sam often thought the weirdest thing, is that when the girls suddenly appeared at their hotel room with their backpacks and their bright faces and chapped lips and wild hair, they didn’t insist on getting their own room.
They always knew where he was, of course - he had tried hiding once, but nothing, not even angelic intervention, prevented that knock on the door at five o’clock in the morning.
Dean would ricochet off his bed, as though the concept of sleep and waking was completely foreign to him, and drag the shotgun out from under his pillow before inching to the door in his crew socks and boxers. But every time - without fail - they had a key and the knock was just their way of being polite. Dean’s gun was out of his hands in a flurry of girls and limbs and giggling and talking, and afterwards his cheeks were covered in dark smears of lipstick, and then there were bags everywhere and it only took them moments to vomit hair products and shoes all over the small space as if they had always been there and it was Sam and Dean who were intruding on their private space. (Who could really say how they kept all those boots and accessories in just two hiking backpacks… Sam just learned to stop asking questions.)
Dean would stand there for a moment in the open doorway, still trying to remember where they were, before slamming the door shut and curling back up into bed, the blanket pulled fully over his head.
With Ruby and Faith, you generally just had to wait it out.
There would be a lot of laughter and teasing and flurried energy as they dashed back and forth, tripping and crashing into each other only to laugh harder and move faster.
Sam had always thought that the happiest couples found a rhythm, a dance that they performed where nothing fell or was burned in the kitchen and their pace always matched and the laundry was folded just so and everything seemed seamless. He thinks this is what his parents were like (and tried to ask Dean once, but realized at some point in his adulthood that the vision of Mary and John Winchester in his brother’s memory might never have existed - he thinks sometimes that this realization was what finally pushed him into adulthood) and has dreamed of having someone with whom he is so in-sync with.
Bela and Dean did this sometimes. When she showed up, she’d already be in their hotel room when they got back from dinner or sweaty from a fight or bleary-eyed drunk and she’d say something like, “Took you long enough,” and then Sam found himself on one side of a closed door with his bag on one arm and the words, “Get your own room Sammy,” ringing in his ears. In the morning he’d find them at a diner, finishing each other sentences and him stealing her bacon as she poured him another coffee without anyone bumping elbows or a drop of coffee on the table.
Faith and Ruby are nothing like this. They burn everything from scrambled eggs to chicken parmesan (when someone allows them into a kitchen, which Sam tries to avoid at all costs). Half of their possessions are broken or dingy from their propensity to drop everything. Dean comments from time to time that for a Slayer and a demon with otherworldly physical strength and speed, they are the clumsiest people he has ever come across. Sam never argues this point. He thinks it’s almost the reverse, they are both so small with so much energy - he’s often surprised that they don’t wreck entire buildings with each other, just by accident. (He tries not to calculate how much destruction they do on purpose.) And then he’d be standing there in the middle of it, trying to be very still so that he didn’t mess it all up, their crashing, smashing, wild dance around him.
So when they both put their mind to settling into the Winchester hotel room, it typically includes quite a bit of colliding and broken items and bruising.
All of which Sam waits out patiently.
Because it isn’t like he doesn’t know what’s coming.
Both of them curled up on him and around him and their wild hair tickling him and them laughing softly in his ears and pinning him down between them so that he feels solid and encompassed and they cocoon around him, little wild things, with tales of their latest adventures and puns for Dean and gifts that suddenly get volleyed back and forth across the room and they are up and down, one sitting on his chest and the other performing a particular fight at his feet, jumping up and off and on the bed and arguing and laughing and always laughing and then sudden, deep sleep that’s all limbs and hair and soft breathing and blankets and sheets in a tangle and he feels solid with them on top of him.
And it isn’t like he doesn’t know it’s worth it.
(Although he could live without Dean hurtling insults at them from below the blankets even if the ensuing tickle/pillow fight that inevitably comes keeps him armed with sufficient blackmail material for the next month.)
(Although he knows why Dean never leaves and why he doesn’t return the favor, a not-so-gentle boot in the ass to leave them alone and “get your own room Dean” because when Bela comes it feels like a marriage and a mr. and mrs. and privacy and quiet laughter through the walls but when Faith and Ruby knock on their door it’s like being children again, everything is noise and movement and laughter and nothing feels serious and everything is serious and even if sometimes he really wishes his brother would take the hint and leave so he can shag them breathless and watch them walk around the hotel naked; he knows there’ll be time for that later - because they always find the time for that - but when they first arrive, it’s like family and insults and teasing and laughter.)
Once, they arrived just on the heels of a disaster, and just before a massive snow storm.
Faith usually fought with them over successful kills they accomplished without her assistance, insisting on going over every step of their investigation and battle with Dean and a couple of beers until she was satisfied that it all would have gone over much more smoothly with her assistance. She didn’t like being left out, she hated appearing just as the dust was starting to settle.
Once, they arrived just as the dust was settling and the brothers had just settled in to wait out the impending storm before moving on.
The knock came around three in the morning and Sam watched Dean do his dance - the shotgun, the shuffle, and then-
Nothing.
No door opening wildly with a crash and girls falling over each other, arm-in-arm, almost one person.
Dean looked back at Sam, who sat up in bed and shrugged. With an intake of breath and tightening shoulders, Dean inched towards the door and peered through the peephole before hurriedly opening it and dragging the two girls in.
They were wet and shivering, looked a bit like drowned rats, and had no bags to speak of.
Sam shot up out of bed as Dean calmly shut the door, checking the hallway first, and eyed them warily.
“We ran…” Ruby’s voice was stilted and small, gasping. “We ran about twenty miles…”
“More,” Faith cut her off grimly.
“What-?” Dean took a step towards them, his arm outstretched, looking curiously over at Sam who was frozen on the spot across the room.
“Watchers,” Faith spit out bitterly. Ruby reached up and smoothed her hair out of her face.
“They must have been keeping tabs on us, we got sloppy, and then they were suddenly on top of us.”
“Why didn’t you hitchhike or steal a car or something? Running through this mess was stupid,” Sam’s voice felt thick and unnatural in his mouth as the harsh words came pouring out.
(Again, a strange look from Dean.)
“We had to stay off the roads,” Ruby replied calmly. “I almost went to find a new body…”
“No,” Faith cut her off.
There was a stilted, uncomfortable silence, water dripping off the girls onto the horrid greed carpet in rivulets.
“Why don’t… hey take a hot shower and I’ll call Buffy… have you called? - okay I’ll call her and let her know what happened,” Dean shoved them towards the bathroom and picked up his cell from the nightstand. “Just get warm,” he called over his shoulder.
Sam stood between the two beds, his hands clenched into fists.
“I should have been there.”
Dean looked up surprised, “You couldn’t have kn-hey?! Dawnie? It’s Dean… haha yeah hey there kiddo. Is your big sis around? … no? … what about Spike or the witch? … what the hell why didn’ t they call us? … Dawn an apocalypse is a pretty big… well yeah we’re on a …. No! … listen just let them know when they… just have them call me alright … go to bed it’s a school night anyway … Dawn I swear … well let me at least send Cas… WHATTYA MEAN HE’S ALREADY THERE?! … listen here Dawn… oh okay … oh us? We’re great! … Wait! No! that’s why I called … Faith and Ruby had a run-in with some Watchers not far from… oh… yeah okay… yeah I’ll let them know… thanks kiddo… yeah yeah yeah I know you’re not … alright hot stuff… I’ll call back in a couple of days and we’ll lay low for now … no do not send Andrew! Dawn?! Dawn did you hear me do not! …” Dean looked back at Sam, “She hung up on me!”
Sam just stared as Dean started putting on jeans and his boots. “I’m gonna head into town before we get completely snowed in and pick up some more supplies. Food and stuff. We gotta hole out here for a while and then maybe drive the girls over to Sunnydale so we can all figure this… Sam are you okay?”
“I should have been there.”
“It’s not your fault, ya big moose. Anyway, didn’t they skip out on us a few weeks ago back in Atlanta? I woke up and they were gone, did they tell you were they went?”
“No.”
“Then how could you have known anyway?”
Silence.
“I’ll be back, Sammy. Just get them warm, okay?”
Sam stood outside the door to the bathroom for a few minutes, trying to hear their voices under the crashing sound of the shower, but there wasn’t even a murmur. So he dropped back onto the bed and waited.
He probably dozed off because the next thing he knew, two warm bodies were curling up on either side of him, smelling like hotel shampoo, bodies still warm from the shower and their hair static-hot from the hotel blow-dryer, wearing his old t-shirts and boxers that dwarfed them. He didn’t even hear them getting dressed, hadn’t heard their bare feet stomping around the room, their giggles, their crashing-smashing dance, he always heard it.
He looked down at them, their heads curled up just inside the nook of his arms, their hands intertwined on his chest, he had never known them to be so tired, so still.
Usually Ruby’s fingers would be tapping out a beat on his chest, or Faith’s hand, as she hummed just below the register of anyone hearing. Usually Faith’s feet rubbed up against theirs, comforting and always in motion, soothing them and herself with her small movements.
Even in sleep they both moved constantly. Sam would wake up sometimes with bruises on his legs because they both kicked out at their nightmares and memories in their sleep. Once, Faith gave him a black eye in the night. Once Ruby bit his arm so hard they woke up covered in little droplets of blood.
And they both giggled before kissing him softly and murmuring to each other about their soft little boy and how delicate their baby was and how precious and sweet and then would demand something decadent for breakfast.
Tonight, they were wrung out beyond anything he had ever seen. After a good fight both of them were the type to celebrate with dancing or sex or both. Sometimes he’d drop them at a club so he could get in a good nap first before they attacked him a few hours later with their new burst of energy.
(Dean liked to drink and play pool after a good hunt; make friends with a bartender; lose his heart to a fellow bearded vagabond; come home stumbling and singing drinking songs he made up off-the-cuff and always sort of sounded like a sped-up version of Hotel California or a slowed-down version of Eye of the Tiger.)
Sam placed a kiss on the top of both their heads and tightened his arms around them, receiving the satisfaction of them both snuggling closer to him as he did.
Outside, he could hear the gentle hum of the icy rain that signaled the coming storm. In the morning, there’d be snow and they’d be safe from whatever the girls had been running from in the meantime.
“Dean talked to Dawnie,” he said finally. For all that he sometimes was exhausted by them, he found their sudden silence and stillness disconcerting. “She might be sending Andrew? I didn’t really get a sense of anything. Mostly she just said to stay here until the storm breaks. And then I guess we’ll go to Sunnydale?”
“Shh!” Ruby tilted her head up to look at him, her deep eyes lined with dark shadows. “Be a quiet bear for once. She’s finally asleep!” Ruby rubbed his shoulder with her cheek and continued in the same hoarse whisper, “She hasn’t slept in almost three days.”
Sam’s heart thudded in his chest. “Why didn’t you call?”
Ruby shrugged, “She told me not to. Wanted to deal on her own.” She yawned deeply, “Just sleep, bear. We can talk later.”
Within seconds, Ruby’s breathing was set in a perfect harmony with Faith’s soft snoring and he knew they were both asleep.
He held them, rubbing their arms softly with his hands, trying to pour some energy into their skin with the small motion.
It was the first time he didn’t fall asleep first.
When Dean appeared - windblown and nearly frozen - several hours later with a couple of lukewarm pizzas and bags of snacks and food (“Are those my boxers?!”) and an armful of old dvd’s borrowed from the hotel clerk - the girls woke up with a start and were back to their normal selves.
They spent the next few days in the hotel room - sending the brothers out to brave the storm for food and liquor occasionally - mostly the three of them curled up on one bed while Dean kept up a running commentary through the bad daytime soaps and worse films from his.
Hunters and Slayers and runaway demons didn’t often get vacations.
But cuddled up in a hotel room while a storm raged on outside, protecting them from the dangers they were supposed to fight, was a better break than Sam had ever hoped to ask for.
They’d never forgo the lingering threat that hung perpetually over their heads, but maybe holding each other as they slept, finding the space to curl up around each other, was all they were allowed to have.
* posting this 20min early because why the hell not (also a full day early for everyone not on a BKK timezone... such is the life)